Jake X Jane Homestuck Fanfiction

Act of Charity

Chapter Thirteen : Act of Charity

The blonde's name was Roxy. How she knew mine was not yet clear.

"I had to save you," she explained as I approached their table. "That girl, Harley is a spazzer freak. I considered it an act of charity to call you over here."

I looked back at Jade, sitting under the tree. "She didn't seem so bad."

"Are you kidding?" Roxy said, incredulous. "She sat next to me in bio last year. Spent the entire semester trying to recruit me to her various groups, all of which she is the sole member of. It was like sharing a Bunsen burner with a cult member."

"What's in the bag?" Aranea asked, nodding at the welcome packet, which I was still holding.

"Hospitality gift," I said, "Student Ambassadors thing I guess."

"Ambassador,"  Roxy corrected me, adjusting her ample cleavage. "Hello? She's, like, the only one!"

I wasn't sure what I was doing here, now that I'd been saved from Jade. Before I found out, though, there was one more issue to clear up.

"How did you know my name?"

She'd been checking her phone, and now looking up at me, squinting in the sunlight. "You told me at the party, before it got busted."

"No," I said, "I didn't."

She and Aranea exchanged a look. Now, I was acting like a cult member. Roxy said, "Then I guess Jake must have mentioned it."

"Jake?"

"Jake English? Your neighbor? You did meet him on Saturday, didn't you?" she asked. "He's not exactly forgettable."

"He's not as weird as he seems," Aranea said to me.

"He's weirder," Roxy added. When Aranea shot her a look, she said, "What? That guy hangs out in the basement of an abandoned house. That's not normal."

"It's a storm cellar. It's not like he built it or something."

"Did you even hear  what you're saying?" Roxy sighed loudly. "Look, you know I love Jake. But he is kind of a freak."

"Isn't everybody?" Aranea said, picking out another dorito.

"No," Roxy adjusted her bosom again. "I, for instance, am completely normal in every way."

Aranea snorted, eating another dorito, and they were both quiet for a moment. Now, I thought. Now is when I introduce myself as Liz Sweet, clear this whole thing up.

Then I'd just have to do it again in homeroom tomorrow and I'd be all set, judy where I needed to be for all this to work the way I wanted it to. But for some reason, standing there, I couldn't.

Because despite my best efforts otherwise, Jane already had a story here. She was the girl who'd discovered Jake on the back porch, then taken refuge in his hideout. The girl at the party, the girl Jade had welcomed in her spazzy freaker style.

She was not the same Jane I'd been for the first fourteen years of my life. But she was Jane. And not even a new name could change that, now.

Roxy looked at Aranea. "So, speaking of English, what's the story? Did his parents yank him out of here for good, or what?"

Aranea shook her head. "I saw him after homeroom. He said they were letting him stay, but he had tons of hoops to jump through. They've been meeting about it with Mrs. Imperia all morning."

Don't blame me if 'Mrs. Imperia' is too lame compared to the Condesce.

"Cod, that sounds miserable," Roxy groaned. To me she added, "Mrs. Imperia's the principal. She hates  me."

"No, she doesn't," Aranea said.

"Actually, she does. Ever since the whole, you know . . . incident when I backed into the guardhouse. Remember?"

Aranea thought for a second. "Oh, right, that was bad," she said. Then she looked at me and added, "She's a horrible driver. She never looks when she merges."

"Why should I always have to do the looking?" Roxy asked. "Why can't other people look out at me?"

"The guardhouse is an object. It's defenseless."

"Tell that to my bumper. I'm still paying off the money I owe my mother for the damn body shop."

Aranea rolled her eyes. "I thought we were talking about Jake."

"Right. Jake." Roxy turned to me. "My point is, he's, like, an administrator's wet dream. Boy genius who skipped like, all of junior high and was talking college courses, then came to this hellhole by choice. Which is something I'll never understand."

"He wanted to be normal," Aranea said quietly, picking out another dorito. Then glancing at me, she explained. "Jake had never been in public school. He was actually going to college early, because he's so smart and got moved up so much. But then he decided he wanted to, you know, live like a regular teenager. So he got his after-school job making smoothies at Frazier Bakery, where my boyfriend at the time was working."

"Kankri," Roxy said. She sighed. "Man, that boy could blend. You should have seen his abs."

Ouch, wont'cha look at that, Dirk.

Aranea ignored this, continuing, "Jake and I actually had known each other since we were kids, but we'd fallen out of touch. Once he was working with Kan, though, we picked right back up where we'd left off and started hanging out."

"At which point he fell totally in love with her," Roxy told her. Aranea shook her head. "What? It's the truth. I mean, he's supposedly over it now, but there was a time-"

"He's like a brother to me," Aranea said. "I could never think of him that way."

BAM MADAFAKAS

"Also, she only dates dirtbags," Roxy told me.

And, no. This Kankri with killer abs is not a dirtbag.

Aranea sighed. "True. It's a sickness."

Roxy gave her a sympathetic look before reaching over, patting her back the same way I'd watched her earlier from a distance.

Then she looked at me, "So, you going to sit or what? You're making me nervous, just standing there."

I glanced back at Jade, alone under the tree, and then the random groups, as intricately divided as genuses in the animal kingdom, spread out betweeen us.

"Sure," I said, stuffing the welcome packet into my backpack. "Why not."

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